When Enron fell and founder Ken Lay died in July awaiting trial, the public outcried justice might not have been served. Brian Moriarty said that was not the case.
Moriarty, the associate director for communications at the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics, said scandals such as the Enron case helped build awareness at business schools across the country that the way ethics are taught should be re-examined. In a way, he said, those scandals have helped.
This week, Miller College of Business will participate in Ethics Week, which is dedicated to pressing ethical issues affecting majors and colleges across campus, Associate Dean Ray Montagno said.
The goal is to develop programs to focus on ethics for the individual college but also appeal to wider interest, he said.
Keynote speakers are Nel Noddings, an expert on educational ethics, Lisa Eckenwiler, an expert in bioethics and Cynthia Cooper, the whistle blower on the WorldCom scandal.
While Moriarty said teaching ethics at business colleges is not new, it is growing and the methods they are taught are changing.
A World Resources Institute report shows issues in business ethics continue to expand, and growth in the number of schools teaching ethics is rising rapidly.
A recent study from the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics shows a rise in the number of MBA programs requiring courses in business ethics, rising from 5 percent in 1988 to 25 percent in 2006, Moriarty said.
Ball State is looking at new ways to teach ethics in business education in addition to what is taught in the classroom, Montagno said.
Miller College of Business already has a voluntary certificate program that teaches issues such as diversity and ethics and wants to make such programs mandatory, Montagno said.
Some voluntary programs might become mandatory when the strategic plan is revised, he said.
"We've been doing a lot of things on a voluntary basis, so we are trying to change that and make it so students will be more likely to participate because it will affect their grades," Montagno said.
Nicole Feldhues, who works with business students at the Career Center, said outside programs give students opportunities to get hands-on with theories they might learn in class. Also, she said, doing programs dealing with real world ethical issues makes students more marketable.
Moriarty said he agreed. Some of this growth in the focus on ethics at business schools is coming because potential employers are coming to expect that recent graduates have that experience.
"Leading companies recognize creating and sustaining an ethical culture is critical to long-term business success," Moriarty said.
The flip-side, he said, is recent surveys indicate that a large number of MBA students are likewise paying close attention to the values and culture of organizations when choosing job offers.
The bottom line, Moriarty said, is that regardless of the motivation or the outcome, it is increasingly important that business majors are learning these ethical lessons while still in class.
"The idea is to develop future leaders who think of business and ethics as going together, not as separate," he said. "It is better to start thinking about these things before you are in a tough situation where you are not sure what is the right thing to do."
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